Too Soon? Apparently.

You know the Aflac duck? That cute little spokesbird for (duh!) Alfac that everyone thought was so cute when he yelled "Aflac!" that they decided to stop using him as much? Yeah, that duck. Well, as it turns out, that's really not a talking duck. No, see they were only pretending to have the duck talk and the voice that we heard was really that of professional obnoxious person Gilbert Gottfried. But now, the duck has gone quiet as Mr. Gottfried has been fired due to making "offensive" tweets about the current situation in Japan.

When do you think people are going to learn that there is a certain amount of time that one must wait after a disaster or mishap before it will be "okay" to mock it? I'm guessing never, as this sort of thing seems to happen whenever tragedy strikes. You know when people make a joke and follow it up with "Too soon?" There's a reason for that! Sometimes, it's just too effing soon. And I guess that it was too soon for Mr. Gottfried's jokes. Speaking of the jokes, let's take a look at what it takes to get one fired as the voice of a duck these days.

Our friends at BuzzFeed compiled the ten "most offensive" tweets before they were removed from Mr. Gottfried's Twitter feed. (Why do people even bother removing stuff that they regret putting online? Don't they know that the Internet never forgets? Nothing is ever erased from the Internet. It's there forever. There's no point. Just embrace it and your ill-advised tom foolery and move on.) I don't know if they're in any particular order and even if they were, I don't know if Number One or Number Ten would be the most offensive. But those are good places to start. Listed at Number One:

Yeah, that's not good. It's also not funny. Not even close to funny. Maybe Number Ten will be better. Let's find out...

Again, not funny. It's barely sophomoric humor. And I realize that it's in poor taste, but are these really enough for someone to get fired over? After all, he is a comedian. (Granted, I've never found him overly amusing, but that doesn't change what he does.) What else? Oh, how about Number Three.

OK, that's not bad. That's kind of funny. I'm not trying to be offensive (because I rarely try), it's just kind of funny. It would be funnier if there hadn't been a horrifying disaster just a couple of days ago. I'll agree with that. But that's the funniest one out of the bunch. Most of them are like this one:

See? That's not only stupid, it's just not funny. And BuzzFeed only has the ten worst tweets that he did. How many were there total? Why did he feel the need to make lame tweet after lame tweet after lame tweet? I don't know, but now he's reaping what he hath twat, as Aflac wasted no time in firing the man. And while I think he could have used better judgment, I don't know that he deserved to be fired for what he twat. He's the voice of a duck. The duck only says one word: Aflac. Good work if you can get it, I suppose. But how many people even know that he's the voice of the duck? How many people even saw the tweets? I'm guessing that the people in Japan have other things to worry about at the moment other than the 140 character random thoughts of Gilbert Gottfried.

Charlie Sheen At The Oscars

I know, I know. You're expecting a fashion filled extravaganza which reflects last night's Academy Awards ceremony, aren't you? (Don't get me wrong. I see no reason to not include pictures of the astonishingly lovely Sandra Bullock in this post. Different doesn't have to mean crazy or short-sighted!) Well, you would have gotten it if it hadn't been for my cousin who suggested that I pay attention to a little Twitter fad that took off during the Super Bowl. It seems as if someone had started a hashtag on Twitter called JaneAustenAtTheSuperBowl. And it was just what it sounds like. It was Jane Austen musings as if she were at the Super Bowl. (By the way, just so I'm not too hip for the room, a hashtag is this symbol: #. It designates a specific topic on Twitter. And also, just so I'm clear, Twitter is pretty useless most of the time. My participating in this nonsense should not be interpreted as any sort of indication that I think Twitter is cool. I don't.)

Thus, with that sort of seed planted in my often empty noggin, I thought that the Oscars would need a voice. Maybe not a Jane Austen sort of voice, as a friend of mine was completely appalled that anyone would disgrace the works of Jane Austen (she's really into bonnet movies and bonnet books), but a voice none the less. Then it hit me. Or I fell down because I was drunk. Whichever it was, I had a revelation. What the Oscars needed was more Charlie Sheen. Thus, I created the hashtag #CharlieSheenAtTheOscars and twat periodically throughout the telecast which I occasionally watched. What? Twat is the past tense of tweet, right? I will tweet. I am tweeting. I have twat. Sounds right to me.

And don't think that I ever expected anyone to notice this little method of amusing myself. I didn't. And I think I succeeded by setting my expectations as low as I usually do for things like this. So, since I know you missed it, allow me to take you through the Academy Awards show as seen through the tweets of a very real, yet very fictional Charlie Sheen. Behold!

• At Kodak Theater. Walk w/me side by side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Roll out that red carpet if you want, but I'm rolling out magic bro and I must save it for my family. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• No one has acknowledged me yet. I should have been walking in to sandwiches, massages and hand jobs. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• No one has even said hello. I feel like an unwelcome relative given cold coffee every night at nine o’clock.#Charliesheenattheoscars


• Showtime! Find the most comfortable seat in the house, lean back and watch—it’s about to get really gnarly. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Can't believe they didn't ask me to host. These two suck. I've got poetry in my fingertips.
  #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Screw hosting because that’s where you get slaughtered. That’s where you get embarrassed. From the prom queen. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• My tux is uncomfortable. It doesn't fit because my chest and my biceps are too big. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I have effortlessly and magically converted your tin can into pure gold statuettes. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• First award of the night handed out. Winning! #Charliesheenattheoscars


• The first statuette is free. The next one goes in your mouth. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• No one at my table has won anything. I'm dealing with fools and trolls here. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• To all the losers: I have real fame, you have nothing. You have zero. I probably have syphilis. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• I don't care who wins. I will forget about them as the last image of them exits this beautiful theater. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• There's Natalie Portman. It might be lonely up here but I sure like the view. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I am special, and I will never be one of you! I will never have an Oscar. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• If they want me in a sequel, it's a smash. If they don't, it's a turd that opens on a tugboat. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• No one looks happy. Is the rule that we have to all sit in here and touch ourselves and frown? #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• #Thekidsareallright I don't subscribe to any part of the model. They brainwashed my friends and my family. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Christian Bale freaking won?? Sorry man. Didn't make the rules. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• Jesse Eisenberg looks confused. Oh wait, can’t process it. Losers. Winning. Buh bye #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• I could get nominated one day. There are parts of me that are Dennis Hopper. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I'm not Mark Zuckerberg. He was a pussy. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• I will destroy you in the air and deploy my ordinance to the ground. #Charliesheenattheoscars


• Almost three hours of this so far. The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• I liked #TrueGrit. There's a new sheriff in town and he has an army of assassins. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• You have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me. Boom! That’s the whole movie. #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Melissa Leo. Winning! #Charliesheenattheoscars
  
  
• Toy Story 3. Winning! #Charliesheenattheoscars

LeBron James Whines Again

Apparently, Tuesday was "Hater Day" as declared by a one LeBron James. Dang it! And I missed it! Dang it! I miss everything! Wait. What was it? Well, from what I can tell, it was one more time that LeBron felt the need to whine about things. Aw, poor LeBron. Always getting his widdle feewings hurt.

According to The Huffington Post, James "...declared on Tuesday via twitter that the day was "Hater Day" and shared racists tweets that were directed at him." Let's just remember that LeBron has come to the conclusion that the reason that people are unhappy with him for the way that he made his exit out of Cleveland (via a huge one hour production, complete with dog AND pony, on ESPN for an hour) is because folks are racist. That's right. If you're black and you act like an ass and other folks don't like it, it's not just because you're an ass that people don't like. It's the fact that you're black that people don't like. This, of course, is according to LeBron after he was done acting like an ass.

I guess his official tweet to kick of "Hater Day" (he could not have come up with a more ridiculous name for a more ridiculous concept) said "Today is Hater Day. Everyone please let them get their 2 mins of fame and light! I Love You Haters. Continue to make me proud of u guys! LOL". Now, I'm not sure why you'd WANT to give anyone who is a jackass their 2 minutes of fame and light (when did we start throwing light into it?), but LeBron apparently did. And his reasoning, as he explained to ESPN was "I just want you guys to see it also. To see what type of words that are said toward me and towards us as professional athletes. Everybody thinks it is a bed of roses and it's not." To which I say "Wah." Tell you what, LeBron. You give me the position that you have and the money that you make and we'll see how I do with what people say. We all know I would do horrible in the NBA, so I can imagine that some of the derision directed at me would have something to do with that, but for the salary that you're raking it, I think that I could suck it up pretty darn well. I certainly think that I wouldn't have to go crying all over Twitter, for cryin' out loud.

Let's see some of the things that have Mr. James sooooo upset. One tweet said: "hey good game last night, too bad you're a fraud, BITCH". Hmm. Quite honestly, I'm just impressed that the bloke who wrote that knew to use you're instead of your. That would make me pretty happy to receive a grammatically correct tweet and not some POS filled with 4 and 2 and U.

Another tweet read that James is "a big nosed big lipped bug eyed (racial slur). Ur greedy, u try to hide ur ghettoness." OK, the racial slur is always out of line. That's never necessary. But seriously? Does the rest really bother him? He does know that not everyone in the world thinks that he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, right? Actually, I'm beginning to believe that he does not know that. Otherwise, why would he be reacting this way to tweets from anonymous douchebags on the Internet? I don't get it.

One literary genius tweeted to him: "why don't u speak by laying ur head under a moving car". Yeah, that makes no sense, moron. Putting your head under a moving car is far from a substitute for speech. On top of that, how is he supposed to get his head underneath there in the first place if the car is already moving? That suggestion contains nothing more than faulty engineering is what that contains.

I guess "Hater Day" (still hate that name) came to a close with this parting message from the founder of said ridiculous day: "U see world how people feel! Just use it as extra motivation in whatever u do best! No one can stop your dreams from becoming reality!" What the heck does that even mean? "U see world how people feel!"? Yes. Yes, I do see how they feel. Some people really do not like you at all. Some folks want you to do physically impossible things with your head in lieu of actually speaking. I see that. But I don't know that that was your original point. I only wish that he had taken his own advice and used it as extra motivation in what he does best instead of whining about how some people don't like him on Twitter.

I can't believe that this stuff really bothers him. It's on Twitter, for cryin' out loud! It's not like it's his mother who is telling him all of this stuff. These are faceless, anonymous cowards on the freaking Internet. And it bothers him? I don't get it. Do you know how many times I've been called an idiot because of something I've wrote on this blog? Let's just say that it is plenty. And each time, it does nothing more than amuse the hell out of me. I don't know these people and I don't know that I want to know them if they're actually calling me an idiot. Ideas can be exchanged without name calling. That's why when it happens, I really don't give it a second thought (though I do walk around for the remainder of the day feeling quite proud, as if I've accomplished something by annoying a stranger somewhere in the world). I wonder why LeBron can't do the same thing? Maybe all of his concern over what people think of him was what was getting in the way of him winning a championship.

Facebook Is Down! Facebook Is Down!

Yesterday, the Facebook went down for a few hours. You would have thought that time had stood still, judging from some of the reactions on the Innerwebs. Fortunately for us, some folks took to Twitter when they were FB-less and some of them used their 140 characters or less to provide us with amusement.

Take a one TheDollSays who took to tweeting in order to bring us this gem:

Would not have surprised me a bit if that really happened. Not a bit. Something called OPB realized that Facebook being down was just what this country needed.

Something called MTVClutch realized that without the Facebook, we are really going to miss out on some pertinent information about folks.

A one Misty Mills took this opportunity to, once and for all, explain what in the world Twitter is for.

And this poor Kingsleyyy chap is very upset about being sans Facebook. He blames it on the upcoming movie about Facebook's (alleged) creator, Mark Zuckerberg.

All I know is that if someone ever asks me where I was during the great Facebook outage of 2010, they're going to get punched. It was two hours, people! Get a grip!

The Governator's All A-Twitter

I need for November to hurry up and get here so that everyone can freaking vote and will stop being subjected to the incessant barrage of campaign ads and literature which are seemingly endless. After that, then I need for January to hurry up and get here so that Arnold Schwarzenegger can get the heck out of the office of the governor of California and go about trying to get some cushy job in the Obama administration (which seems to be what he's angling for lately, even though he hasn't said anything about it). Not that his replacement is going to be any better, mind you. We're faced with the abhorrent choices of either Meg Whitman (who has already spent over $108 million of her own money, so you can only imagine how she'll be pissing away mine if she's elected) or Jerry Brown (who might be in the early to middle stages of dementia, depending on the time of day and if he's speaking publicly or not). But I'm so ready to get rid of the Governator right now that either one almost looks appealing.

Arnold hasn't always put being governor first. No, if you've ever heard him talk, you know what his first priority and his first love is. Laughter. That man loves to tell a joke. Making an audience laugh is what he seemingly lives for. He thrives on one-liners. His enormous face just lights up if he can make a crowd laugh with one of his silly jokes. Like back in May, when he was at Emory University in Atlanta to give the commencement speech, and he said, "I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend, but with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me." Or in July when he said that "...while BP appears to have contained the Gulf oil leak...no one has figured out how to contain Mel Gibson.” Oh, yeah. He's a riot.

If the state wasn't in the complete s***hole that it is (that could say sinkhole; you don't know), I don't know that I'd give a fat rat's ass what he does or said. But the state isn't exactly thriving, so I guess that's why he irritates me so much lately. And after I read that he was on his way to Asia, the irritation continued. I guess he's going over there to bid on having the World Expo in California in 2020. Whatever. We have problems NOW, Arnold! There a little thing called a 19 billion dollar budget deficit that needs tending to now! (Just four more months. Just four more months. Just four more months.)

But just because he's on his way to Asia, don't let that make you think that he is no longer worried about getting laughs, because they are just as important to him when he's flying in the air as they are when he's doing nothing on the ground. The Governator likes to take to Twitter when he's feeling particularly joke-y and there's no one around to pretend to laugh. He tweets quite a bit when he isn't feeling joke-y, but mark my words, if there's no one around to hear his one liner, it's off to the Twitter he goes!

And tweet he did. Ready for his sky-high snark? He twat tweeted "Over Anchorage, AK. Looking everywhere but can't see Russia from here. Will keep you updated as search continues."

And he even included a lovely photo of him looking for Russia. Behold!

::: sigh ::: Well, I'm glad that he's kept two year old SNL skits in mind for just such an occasion. Now if he would just pay a little more attention to things that are happening now instead of things that might happen ten years from now, I'd relax a little bit. In the meantime, I can't wait for January; after which the only time I'll have to hear from him (hopefully) is when he's doing the talk show circuit for Terminator 12 or Conan The Barbarian 14 - Conan Goes To College.

White Trash Tweet

If you're a business that is going to sponsor an individual (probably an athlete), you're going to want to be sure that the person that you're sponsoring will be a good reflection of your business. If you have a classy business, you're going want to make sure that you're not sponsoring someone like Tonya Harding, for example. That won't look good at all. (Even if you're a lead pipe manufacturer. It's still probably not a good move.) So if you're a company like, say, Jaguar, you're going to want to sponsor someone who would seem to have a great deal of class. Maybe that's asking too much. How about a classy person? Some class? Let me put it another way. If you're Jaguar, don't sponsor someone who is going to Tweet "Suck on that faggots!" Wait. What?

Correct. It would seem that there is an Australian swimmer named Stephanie Rice. She's apparently a fairly big deal. At least in Australia she is. Then again, she was also a pretty big deal at the Beijing Olympics where she swam her way to three gold medals. And since three gold medals is nothing to sneeze at (unless you're allergic), Jaguar decided to sponsor this young dolphin-esque swimmer. And just like a Jaguar, she sure isn't difficult to look at. Behold!

Ah, yes. In the typical pose that one would expect from a swimmer. Laying atop rumpled bed sheets with hair all a-flowing. Sure. That's how all women look when they're just hanging out. Uh-huh. All the time. But I digress. The point here is that this woman is apparently a big fan of the Australian rugby team, the Australian Wallabies. Huh. For such a brutal sport, that's kind of a wussy name, isn't it? The Wallabies? (Granted, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL went for years with their mascot as a guy with a feather in his cap who was winking. Not the most manly mascot anyone has ever dreamed up.)

But the Wallabies apparently beat the South African team. (I cannot locate the name of those blokes in any report of this because the media is now sucking worldwide. Thanks for that, sucky worldwide media.) They won 41-39 in a game that was described by The Telegraph as "a nail-biting victory". I'll take their word for it. I have no idea if that is a high scoring game or just an average score that was tight in the end or what. Not a clue. None. I guess that I just need to learn more about rugby, as I can't really assume that every publication reporting on this sort of thing is going to spell it out, but I really wish they'd maybe just give us a little clue.

Now, Ms. Rice was so excited about the victory that she did what anyone would do in that situation. That's right. She tweeted. Good Lord. I'm so over people and their tweets, I cannot even tell you. But what I can tell you is what she tweeted. And it wasn't very Jaguar-esque to tweet out to the entire world "Suck on that faggots!"

I wasn't the only one who thought that it wasn't exactly the kind of person that Jaguar might not want to sponsor. Yeah, Jaguar thought the same thing as well. They dumped her. They were more elegant about the announcement than I was just then, of course. A one Mark Eedle, who is the marketing and public affairs manager for Jaguar Australia, said, "We made a decision yesterday, and we've terminated the agreement with her."

They terminated their agreement with her?! But...but...she made a really weak apology after she was told how stupid she was! You mean that it didn't matter to Jaguar that she said, "I made a comment on Twitter on Saturday night in the excitement of the moment. I did not mean to cause offence and I apologise." That's what she says in the "excitement of the moment"? She gets so excited that she tweets "Suck on that faggots!"? You know, some people simply shout, "Yipee!" What if they had been playing a German team? Would she be tweeting what she thought the Jews should do? I certainly hope not.

LiLo Is All A-Twitter

As much as I loathe Twitter and think that it is absolutely ridiculous, it is times like this which I am grateful for its existence. And by "times like this" I mean "the day after Lindsay Lohan found out that she's going to be going to jail and has taken to Twitter to express her outrage".

Here's the scoop: Yesterday, Lindsay Lohan was reminded that she is just like everyone else when it comes to the legal system when she was sentenced to 90 days in jail for failing to comply with the terms of her probation that were set back in 2007. She cried. She freaked out. She whined. And that was before she knew she was going to jail! After she found out about all of the jailing that was going to take place, that's when the real drama started. That's also when she did what any other self-absorbed, semi-celebrity would do in just such a situation. That's right. She took to Twittering.

Mind you, this is like 6 tweets all strung together since you can only tweet 140 characters at a time. But it is what it is. And what it is, is absolutely hysterical. Here we go:

"It is clearly stated in Article 5 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights that....No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. this was taken from an article by Erik Luna..November 1 marked the 15th anniversary of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. But there were no celebrations, parades, or other festivities in honor of this punishment scheme created by Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission....Instead, the day passed like most others during the last 15 years:Scores of federal defendants sentenced under a constitutionally perverted system that saps moral judgment through its mechanical rules."

It's hard to know which part of that whole screed she sees as being relevant to her own situation. Perhaps she feels that she is being subjected to "torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". Perhaps she feels that the system has sapped its "moral judgment through its mechanical rules" and that's why she is going to jail. Someone should probably tell her that her issues are not part of the Federal court system and that there are NO sentencing guidelines in her situation. I mean, it's an interesting point of view and all of that, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the mess that she got herself into. Nope. Nothing.

But wait! There's more! Her latest tweet read simply: "http://tinyurl.com/29kxdyf -- please RT". If you're unfamiliar with Tweet-Speak, RT means re-tweet. That's Twitter's way of saying "Psst! Pass it on!" If you click on her link, it takes you to a Newsweek article about an Iranian woman who is a mother of two and who is likely to be stoned to death as her punishment for committing adultery. (Nice system you have over there, Iran. Nice system, indeed.) Wait. What?

Is she comparing her plight to that of the condemned Iranian woman? I...I...I think she is! Hey, does someone want to tell her that it's not the same?! A spoiled, over-partied actress who can't figure out how to complete 13 alcohol awareness classes in 3 years is NOT the same as an Iranian woman who is about to be stoned to death for adultery that she may or may not have committed! No wonder she can't figure out how the whole court system and probation apply to her. My God, is she delusional or what? Holy crap. Well, whatever it is, it's definitely entertaining. And I'm sure that there's only more to come. Stay tuned!